Well hello … good to see you again. It’s been a few days as I’ve been busy – mentally busy with: open week, open evening, year 7 baseline tests and marking, all topped off with a few meetings too.

Anyway I thought I’d seen the peak of madness when I wrote my recent post about “grading topics” (just don’t do it) … Apart from the fact that it’s all made up in relation to the new GCSE – you are selling your students short! By the way, if you’re from a publishing company I’d love to talk to you about putting together a revision guide (I know a few people who would love to get involved too! and a “few” that would buy them for their students too!) that doesn’t involve grading topics – obviously there would be some progression from “the basics”, through “the stuff you need the easy stuff for” finishing with “the stuff you need all of the earlier stuff to be able to do” but the one thing it won’t include is a little badge saying grade “some arbitrary number I’ve made up” next to each topic. Nonsense!

Then I came across a blog post dated  titled:

A New Way of Teaching Maths

Ground breaking research makes waves throughout the mathematics world

Now as you can imagine, I was very curious but also a little bit concerned that I’d missed the “waves” that were being made. I want to learn how to be a better teacher but I also consider myself to be quite on the ball when it comes to what is going down with Maths education so I was doubly curious: How can I have missed this? So I clicked the link (don’t! it’s truly awful! but if you must I’ve put it at the bottom to try to save you from yourself) – instead I’ll give you a bullet point precis:

  • It opens with “Mathematics is a notoriously despised subject for the majority students, ranging from primary school age right up until the time of sweet 16s where the majority say goodbye to the subject with nothing short of adulation.” MEL: They do know that maths at A level is now the most popular subject don’t they? And boy!! What a way to open a post?
  • Apparently there may be “newly discovered scientific reasons behind such a fervent disliking for mathematics and, moreover, our child’s difficulties in grasping key concepts” MEL: Yep there is lots of research about why students dislike maths … but that research has nothing to do with the one in the offending post.
  • The results from the research the post relates to were “nothing short of staggering”. MEL: No emotion there at all is there?
  • There is no link to the research and I have left a comment on the post asking them to provide me with details but based on the quotes in the blog post I have been able to track it down (with a little help from a friend).
    • This new discovery relates to research reported in March 2014 from the University of Chicago by Miriam Novack.
    • According to “the post” there were 100 students but according to another article there were 90.
    • The children were split into 3 groups, all solving “sums”: they either picked up magnetic numbers, or mimed the actions but didn’t actually move the numbers or used a “V” shaped gesture to group the numbers together.
    • Apparently previous research has found that gestures can help children learn and this new study showed that “abstract gesture” is a more effective teaching tool than concrete action .

I AM NOT ANTI-RESEARCH. In fact I spent the first three years of my teaching doing lots of action research and reading lots of academic articles for the Masters in Teaching and Learning what I take umbrage at is sensationalising it and scaremongering people.

According to the blog post “Research such as this is very often what defines the best of lessons and teaching strategies, and most certainly this study will be of interest for teachers and tutors with their fingers on the educational pulse” MEL: ummm .. nope! Of no interest to me whatsoever apart from providing me with blogfodder.

PS: If this is true and you were thinking of a new business start-up in magnetic numbers now might not be the right time (Mrs D .. take note! I’ve cancelled the cheque)

PPS: Link to “the Post” is here -> A new way of teaching maths and a news article reporting on the research is here -> UChicago